Thanks Herman and Wheat!! I appreciate the responses from both of you. Here is what I found out. I recently because a photographer for CBS MaxPreps, and was having a conversation about my question here with the Photo Editor. He made me aware of something I hadn't considered. That being that lots of cameras are set at a softer image by default from the factory. So I was told to look at raising the sharpness factor in camera, which I have done through picture control. That has made a marked difference.

But what I plan to do next is an Autofocus fine tune. Researching seem to show that banging a camera around can cause the focus sensor to miscalculate where things are in the frame. Apparently this can be resolved using this method. The issue is that seem everyone has a way to do it. ANDDD THEIR was is the right way.....hahaha!!

Thanks Herman and Wheat!! I appreciate the responses from both of you. Here is what I found out. I recently because a photographer for CBS MaxPreps, and was having a conversation about my question here with the Photo Editor. He made me aware of something I hadn't considered. That being that lots of cameras are set at a softer image by default from the factory. So I was told to look at raising the sharpness factor in camera, which I have done through picture control. That has made a marked difference.

But what I plan to do next is an Autofocus fine tune. Researching seem to show that banging a camera around can cause the focus sensor to miscalculate where things are in the frame. Apparently this can be resolved using this method. The issue is that seem everyone has a way to do it. ANDDD THEIR was is the right way.....hahaha!!

OKAAAAAAAAAAY who sees this..lol

Increasing the sharpness in camera only affects the jpegs not your raw files so you can pretty much ignore any of the picture controls.

Auto Focus fine tune is more to do with slight differences between lenses actual alignment and what the camera thinks is the brand standard. You do a fine tune for each lens and the camera records then and applies the corrected setting each time you use it. I've never come across the AF sensor moving in a camera and if it did the tolerances are so minuscule the focus would be a mile off so a fine tune would do nowt.

Increasing the sharpness in camera only affects the jpegs not your raw files so you can pretty much ignore any of the picture controls.

Auto Focus fine tune is more to do with slight differences between lenses actual alignment and what the camera thinks is the brand standard. You do a fine tune for each lens and the camera records then and applies the corrected setting each time you use it. I've never come across the AF sensor moving in a camera and if it did the tolerances are so minuscule the focus would be a mile off so a fine tune would do nowt.

Hi BP,

I'm not running Raw for sports related jobs, so all the workflow is actually jpeg. And to be honest there was a pretty big benefit to image quality once I make the adjustment. As for AFFT from watching some of the the footage of the adjustment being carried out it seems to show that you can push of pull focus. Seems that my 70-200 has the focus issue sometimes on moving subjects, so it might not hurt to looking into it for that particular lens/ As for moving that is focus moving not the sensor literally moving from one position to another.

What takes place is explained here:

What's the problem?

If you're a DSLR shooter, you may be acutely aware of consistent front or back-focus issues with some of your lenses, particularly fast ones like F1.4 primes. Mirrorless users tend to not have such issues, because their cameras focus using their image sensors. When a mirrorless camera says it's achieved focus, generally it's actually in focus. That doesn't necessarily hold true with DSLRs, which use a secondary phase-detect sensor under the mirror as a sort of proxy for focus at the imaging plane. This makes DSLR focus sensitive to misalignments between the secondary AF module and the image sensor, and also requires calibration of the optics inside the module itself. Furthermore, the way these phase-detect AF modules work makes them sensitive to certain lens aberrations, like spherical aberration.

Manufacturers of DSLR bodies and lenses do a lot of calibrations to make sure that this isn’t an issue, calibrating every AF point at the factory, writing look-up tables into lenses, and more. But the reality of tolerances is such that you’ll be best off if you calibrate your particular copy of a lens and your particular copy of a body yourself. That’s what AF Fine Tune, or AF micro-adjustment as Canon calls it, is all about.

A lens will either front focus or it will back focus and will do so for every shot you take with it on a given body. The AFFT 'corrects' this by dialling in an additional amount of focus movement over what the camera thinks it should be to every shot you take.

It doesn't matter if your subject is stationary, moving or otherwise - if a lens has front/back misalignment then the focus will ALWAYS be misaligned. A quick trick is to lay a large ruler (end on) in front of you and point the central AF point at one of the larger numbers. Take a shot wide open and when you check the image that number should be where the focus is. If lies beyond or in front (run a few tests just to make sure you're not moving anything) then you know your lens is out, which direction to start the AFFT and you might even nail it without using the fancier methods.

Dennis yes I use variables for sports. I have 5 lenses but do not use each all the time. There is my 10.5mm FE, 28-70mm, 70-200mm, 300mm and a 400mm All @ F2.8. The 70-200 seems to show this issue more than any other lens I have. So that is the one I'm going to try this with when i get enough time. heck it can't hurt to try it is the way I see it. I can always default back.

A lens will either front focus or it will back focus and will do so for every shot you take with it on a given body. The AFFT 'corrects' this by dialling in an additional amount of focus movement over what the camera thinks it should be to every shot you take.

It doesn't matter if your subject is stationary, moving or otherwise - if a lens has front/back misalignment then the focus will ALWAYS be misaligned. A quick trick is to lay a large ruler (end on) in front of you and point the central AF point at one of the larger numbers. Take a shot wide open and when you check the image that number should be where the focus is. If lies beyond or in front (run a few tests just to make sure you're not moving anything) then you know your lens is out, which direction to start the AFFT and you might even nail it without using the fancier methods.

I agree and so I could possibly be focusing just short of subject plane. So I want to test to see if over time this has shifted. Nikon has a test chart that can be used. I will post it the chart I found here.

The AF tuning for a zoom is dependent on what the zoom is set at. You can AF tuning 70mm, but that wont work at 200mm. You will have to tune 200mm separately, or any other spot on you zoom that you will normally shoot at.

Thanks, Dennis.

Photography: 100 percent art, 100 percent technical. It takes a photographer to blend them into an image.

The AF tuning for a zoom is dependent on what the zoom is set at. You can AF tuning 70mm, but that wont work at 200mm. You will have to tune 200mm separately, or any other spot on you zoom that you will normally shoot at.

I agree Dennis. But there is a process you go through to eliminates that as a factor. All of the test I have seen are being done mostly with zooms. Let's say you have a 70-200mm lens. You would set that lens to 200mm from what my research is saying, but they do recommend that you recheck what you have done once more. You do however need to be on aperture priority with the lens set wide open and in mirror up mode.